1 year! - world wide - tips and advice needed - Page 2 - TravelPUNK Backpacker College Student Budget Travel Message Boards!

**freespiritz** · 06-21-2007, 05:32 AM

Hehe, yeah...learning to speak Mandarin and learning to read Mandarin are completely different worlds. When I first got to China I knew the characters for stuff like chicken, pork, fish and veggies, so we'd try to stab at a semi-balanced meal and see how it turns out. The locals were always very amused and appreciative of us foreigner's attempts to speak Chinese though.

I'm sure you can get the greetings down...different people find it easier/harder to deal with the tones though. Whatever else, it'll be a fun challenge.

**simply_angelic** · 06-21-2007, 06:12 AM

Hey! Haha sorry, I thought you would have realised I was joking about Canada being unsafe....yeah we're definitely a lot safer than the states, although you should probably avoid Jane & Finch in Toronto at night as that's a pretty sketch area. Other than that we're all good people so don't worry, you should obviously use common sense just like any other place you travel to but you shouldnt have any problems, and since you wont be in SA when I'm there, you should definitely hit up the Toronto peeps if you plan on passing through that area at all & we'll definitely show you a good time around the town.

As for my plans in SA, I'm volunteering for sure with GVI on a predator/prey research expedition that is based in the Venetia (sp?) private reserve in the Limpopo province and in Kruger National Park. The expedition is 10 weeks (so 2 1/2 months) and hopefully I'll get the internship for the next expedition 3 weeks later & just use the 3 weeks time in between to travel otherwise I'll be travelling for about a month or more and volunteering elsewhere. I hope to see a lot of South Africa during this time....as well as Victoria falls (from the Zambia side...Zimbabwe seems a little too scary for me), I hear Malawi is a great chill place & the people are amazing so I'll probably go there for a couple days as well & then a bit of Lesotho & Swaziland....depending on how much time I end up travelling for. since I'll pretty much be on a 2 1/2 month long safari, I'll spend more of my time seeing more of the cultural side of South Africa and some of the natural mountains etc. I still have a lot more reading to do but I'm starting to get a bit of an idea of some of the things I want to do...like perhaps get my PADI open water certificate in Sodwana (sp?) Bay?

**MeTurk** · 06-21-2007, 06:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by raysen

Alot of Europe (get the train around here and ideally fly home from Prague as it is a nice cheap place to end with :D )

Can you fly direct from Prague? I would have thought they'd make you stop in London on that flight which would add to the cost of your flights. As far as I know Ireland (Dublin, Shannon, Cork), England (London) and Amsterdam are the main places to fly to the US from. Aerlingus fly to NY for €127 (not incl. taxes) from all 3 major airports.

Aerlingus should be paying me for all the free advertising I give them on this site. :D

**raysen** · 06-21-2007, 11:21 AM

MeTurk - Yeah we live in England so we would want to be heading for london :D Unless we can get a flight to Norwich airport that may be better - Although I don't think there would be much in it.

Simpley Angelic: Oops hehe, Soz I should realised it was a joke I didnt think I had ever heard anything about Canada being a place of worry - Obviously apart from the normal stuff to be aware off *d'oh* Ohh may take you up on that off to show us around :D

Your trip to SA sounds absolutly amazing and I would love to hear all your stories about it i bet it would be amazing I think SA would be a pretty amazing place to visit. I would love to do that volunteer work Have you had to pay a certain amount to do it? How does it work? Sounds like you have an amazing trip there :D

**MeTurk** · 06-22-2007, 06:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by raysen

MeTurk - Yeah we live in England so we would want to be heading for london :D Unless we can get a flight to Norwich airport that may be better - Although I don't think there would be much in it.

opps. I thought you where American..

Your grand so, Prague seems like one of the cheapest places to fly from and to from any country.